


The Punishing Burden of Failure

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:33:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this inception_kink prompt: Arthur: "I'm not gay, I just love sucking cock." Title taken from the Swans song, "Failure."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Punishing Burden of Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: No spoilers. Set post-movie by several years.

The last time it happens is after a job gone bad, and well before it even started.  
  
  
 _Very_  bad.  
  
  
Bad, as in: bullets flying, running for their lives, they-can't-catch-us-all-if-we-split-up  _bad_.  
  
  
But despite the split-up, Eames still manages to stumble upon Arthur—several miles and twenty feet away from where they'd last seen each other; apparently Eames wasn't the only one who'd thought to double back—in the empty manager’s office of the vacated warehouse they'd called headquarters.  
  
  
"Well, well . . . small world, darl—"  
  
  
"Be. Quiet."  
  
  
By the time Eames nods, Arthur's hand, redolent of both gunpowder and Somnacin residue, has left his mouth. In the semi-darkness of the room, his chilly dark eyes seem to burn into Eames's before shifting to the picture window at Eames’s back.  
  
  
“Were you followed back here?” Even Arthur’s whisper is demanding, as are his hands as he drags Eames by the shoulders away from the window and halfway to the rotting coat-rack near the exit.  
  
  
“What do you take me for? Of course not,” Eames scoffs just as quietly, grinning and vibrating from adrenaline and his own cleverness. It’s the simple things in life that give him joy. “I led them on a merry chase, though. They’re still shooting up Downtown every time a shadow shifts.”  
  
  
Arthur holds his gaze for a few eternal moments, then nods, his shoulders slumping, head lowering till it’s almost touching Eames’ chest.  
  
  
“What about the others?”  
  
  
The Extractor, Jimmy, had been the first out of the warehouse when the Mark’s security team caught up to them, followed by Entae, their Architect. Their Chemist, Trowbridge, hadn’t been anywhere, and Eames had always had his suspicions about the rat-faced slag.  
  
  
“Dunno.” He shrugs. He’d barely known Entae before taking this job, and Jimmy he’d only known by his reputation as an up-and-comer. Trowbridge he’d known for long enough not to be too surprised by her betrayal. Any Chemist who gets addicted to their own chemicals isn’t to be trusted as far as she can be thrown.  
  
  
But they’d been desperate for a Chemist after Reilly backed out last minute, proving that he was the smartest of them all.  
  
  
“Fuck,” Arthur sighs, his breath warm and humid on Eames’ throat. “Fuck.”  
  
  
“Well, if you’re offering. . . .” Eames laughs a little when Arthur glares up at him. “Oh, don’t give me that look, dearest. Wouldn’t be the first time I got those tailored clothes of yours all mussed.”  
  
  
Arthur shoves him against the wall  _hard_. “You really are one twisted son of a bitch, Eames.”  
  
  
“Now, now, let’s leave our mums out of this, shall we?” Eames tsks, laughing again, a little louder this time. “Look, we’re very nearly Scot-free. And pretty well stuck here till things’ve cooled down enough for us to make it to the airport.  
  
  
“And anyway, I know you want to.” Eames reaches between them to discover Arthur’s hard, alright. Likely with the same post-job adrenaline that had necessitated their first dalliance.  
  
  
That same adrenaline is thrumming through Eames right now, like a one-note song.  
  
  
Suddenly, the chill in Arthur’s eyes is replaced by something much hotter, but which still contains absolutely nothing like  _warmth_. And Eames has made peace with the fact that they likely never will.  
  
  
“Kiss me, darling,” he whispers, because—peace aside—it’s not in Eames’s nature to give up without a fight . . . even now.  
  
  
And Arthur . . . Arthur’s doing nothing so prosaic as squirming or thrusting into his grip, He simply stands there, letting Eames fondle him, light and slow, that burning gaze searing Eames from the outside, in.  
  
  
“I don’t kiss men.”  
  
  
“But you’ll suck my cock like a dockyard whore at every opportunity.”  
  
  
Arthur shrugs, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment. “Not  _every_  opportunity, Mr. Eames.”  
  
  
(Eames shivers. Arthur’s the only person who calls him  _Mr._. At first it had been funny, since _Eames_  is his middle name, not his last. But the first time Arthur had called him that while on his knees, all humor had flown right out the window.)  
  
  
“I’ll make a liar of you, yet.” Smirking, Eames squeezes Arthur’s balls firmly, bordering on painfully, just to make the normally staid Pointman hiss like a bloke who wants nothing more than to be undone completely.  
  
  
“Is it that you really give a toss about what’s happened to our esteemed colleagues, or that you don’t want to admit you’re as bent as a lifelong politician?” Eames asks softly.  
  
  
Something flickers in Arthur’s eyes. Maybe amusement. “Look, I’m not gay, Mr. Eames. I just like to suck cock.”  
  
  
Eames’s eyebrows shoot up. “The difference being?”  
  
  
Arthur snorts. “None that I’m interested in explaining to you.” Eames gets shoved against the wall again, somewhat less hard than before. Then Arthur’s dropping to his knees, as graceful as a geisha, eyes not nearly so demure. He undoes Eames’s fly single-handedly at the same time he undoes his own.  
  
  
Only one of them is wearing underwear, and it isn’t Arthur.  
  
  
Once Eames is poking out of his black silk boxer briefs, Arthur takes hold of him and tugs him once, hard, all without breaking gazes. He leans forward slightly, and nuzzles Eames’s cock before running his tongue slowly down it.  
  
  
“Bloody priceless,” Eames breathes, as the head slides past Arthur’s lips and those perfect white teeth. Arthur’s squinting up at him, now, that amusement back in his eyes, and Eames grins back, driving himself deeper into Arthur’s mouth, and hard enough that any other man might be gagging.  
  
  
But this is  _Arthur_ , who may not be gay, but who likes— _loves_  sucking cock.  
  
  
And he’s ridiculously good at it, as he is at everything else.  
  
  
Eames digs his fingers into neat, gel-slicked hair and gets a good grip, holding Arthur’s head still. He pushes his cock in further and further, till it feels like he’s halfway down Arthur’s throat. Arthur makes a sound that nearly has Eames coming, as does the way his throat contracts reflexively.  
  
  
“Take it, and relax, darling. It only gets harder, after this,” he pants, laughing and leaning his head back against the wall. Arthur makes another sound around his cock, this one as if to say: _tell me something else I don’t know._  
  
  
Still gripping Arthur’s hair, Eames works himself into a fast, steady rhythm, barely giving Arthur a chance to get used to it before picking up the pace.  
  
  
(At this late date, he not only knows what Arthur  _likes_  but he knows what Arthur  _expects_.)  
  
  
Smiling, Eames looks down again. Arthur’s lithe, bowstring-taut body cants to the side just enough so that Eames has a nice view of Arthur stroking his own prick with a slow, punishing grip, his thumbnail scoring the tip deep enough to make Arthur gasp around Eames’s cock.  
  
  
(At this late date,  _Arthur_  knows what Arthur likes, and what Eames likes, as well.)  
  
  
“Hungry for more, pet?”  
  
  
Arthur moans once, the most needy, delicious sound Eames’s ever heard, and it momentarily drives all rhythm from his hips, leaves him haphazardly forcing his cock down Arthur’s willing, spasming throat.  
  
  
And Arthur clearly approves, because his eyes slip shut and his hand stutters on his own cock, his hips rocking gently forward.  
  
  
Eames brushes shaking, dirty fingers down Arthur’s damp face and manages to still his thrusts till Arthur opens his eyes again, all dark, dangerous,  _demanding_  heat.  
  
  
“You’re so lovely, do you know?” Eames asks him somberly. “So lovely and desperate. My own little perfectly heterosexual cock-slave, servicing me like your very life depends upon it.”  
  
  
Something else flashes in Arthur’s eyes, now: annoyance. So, smirking again, Eames resumes his previous pace, driving himself home, home, home, till he comes with a shout, his hand clenched on the back of Arthur’s neck hard enough to bruise.  
  
  
Not that he knows this, considering how completely unmoored he’s come from reality. A reality in which Arthur’s nose and lips are still pressed into the crisp curls at the root of Eames’s cock, and his hand slips past his own balls to drive two dry, heedless fingers into himself.  
  
  
By the time Eames touches back down to Earth, Arthur’s face is hot against his thigh, his breathing deep and even. His spent cock is still hanging out of his slacks like an afterthought, and his hair spikes up and out like a porcupine. One hand is splayed on his dark slacks, shaking minutely like a dying starfish, while the other clutches at Eames's left calf.  
  
  
He looks like a man who’s been broken, and Eames has never wanted him more.  
  
  
“Come with me, darling. Rio’s bloody gorgeous this time of year,” he rasps hoarsely—almost begs. Arthur looks up at him, the softness of afterglow lingering in his eyes and expression. He opens his mouth to say something . . . then freezes when the wail of a siren, not too far distant, sounds suddenly like an alarm.  
  
  
Arthur gets to his feet quickly, easily, brushing himself off and licking his lips unselfconsciously. He straightens himself out in a matter of seconds, adjusting cuffs and trousers and hair. He doesn’t look anything like a man whose come is cooling on the floor between them—who’d had Eames’s cock down his throat less than a few minutes ago.  
  
  
But his lips, ah, his lips are still swollen and red. Indecently so, and Eames’s heart and his cock yearn and twitch, respectively.  
  
  
“The airport’ll be watched,” Arthur says flatly, without so much as a blink. “We’d be better off at a train or bus station, anyway. Less security.”  
  
  
Eames nods once, listening to his heart pounding in his ears. To the deceptive  _we_  as it echoes off his brain.  
  
  
To the emptiness spinning out between them, as it always does, eventually.  
  
  
“I’m heading east,” Arthur tells a completely unsurprised Eames. “That leaves you three other directions to choose from, so don’t hang out here too long.”  
  
  
Eames nods again, staring hard into Arthur’s eyes, looking for . . . something. Anything. But all he sees is his own reflection, small and pale.  
  
  
Then Arthur’s gone, without so much as a farewell.  
  
  
Even as his sweat cools, Eames is thinking about nothing. About how  _gorgeous_  Rio is this time of year, especially for a man with no plans and no one to plan them with.  
  
  
Silently, he pulls himself together and follows Arthur’s advice.  
  
  
Dawn finds him at the Arizona-Mexico border.  
  
  
Sunset finds him in Brazil.  
  
  
Sunrise finds him in a hotel room, in the same clothes he's been running in for the past two days and seven countries. Underneath the sweat and grime, they still smell faintly of Arthur.  
  
  
And if Eames closes his eyes, all the better to pretend a succession of skinny, dark-eyed whores doing their time between his legs or on their stomachs are someone else . . . someone who wears forbiddingly expensive French cologne . . . then what of it?


End file.
